In Need of a Vacation...Badly

In 2010 it was Puerto Rico for a fabulous 5 days with my girlfriends.

In 2009 it was countless trips to Atlanta, Inauguration weekend, a trip with my bestie to Jamaica, a quick visit to my "sister" in Chicago, a brief stop to visit family in Puerto Rico with my daughter and mother, and then a luxurious 11-day trip to Dubai.

(I need to be slathered up with sunblock and oil like this right now)

(yes...that would be solid gold statues in the front of the club)

(I need to be in a hot tub at a spa right this second. Please and thank you.)

(And yes...the food was good, too.)

(This guy bought me free drinks all night. I wanted to stay. Forever.)

(A live violinist at the club? Who does that? Oh, right. People in Dubai.)

(Any dj that can play Hall & Oates, Kirk Franklin, and Fela in the club is alright by me!)

(That would be solid gold. Good gold. Real gold. Their opulence was off the chain.)

(It was so hot that we ran barefoot through the sprinklers. It was 120* during the day. 116* when we stepped of the plane...at midnight.)

(That's me...on a Wave Runner. Best.fun.ever.)

Unless you count the weekend I went to Atlanta for my bestie's hip hop engagement party, or the two-day bus trip to Baltimore to visit Maasai's godparents and my new love Meagan (more of this to follow), this year it's been nada/zip/zero/nothing. 

I love to travel. I assume it started with my father bringing me dolls from all of the exotic places he visited that sparked the interest. There was the fair-skinned, brown-eyed doll from Czechoslovakia, or the black pig-tailed rag doll from Jamaica. He even brought me a rabbit as a gift from the wife of the prime minister of Grenada once. And so I was exposed to an understanding that the world was bigger than just Berkeley, California. 

But there was a catch: I.hate.to.fly. I've got way too much ADD pulsing through my veins to be able to comfortably sit in the same space for hours. And to be relegated to that one seat just makes me antsy. So I found the cure for that was to travel with others. Because then it just feels like I'm catching up with old friends and just happen to be flying half way across the world at the same time. 

So traveling now makes me very happy. Me+a beach= very good things. But I guess in the midst of preparing for this move, and not knowing where I will be working, nor living, I felt it would seem irresponsible to plan a trip this year. My good friend Makata has been throwing around the idea of the Cayman Islands. My boy Quad said that I could crash at his place any time in Miami. My bestie is getting married in the Dominican Republic next March. My "sister" wants all of her friends and family to join her on her honeymoon to Ghana next May. But all of this seems so very distant and intangible right now while I sit in dirty New York City wanting desperately to find a way out. *Sigh* I guess I just have to relive the memories and wistfully daydream about making new ones. 

Comments

[Melanie]

These pictures are so invigorating the colors sooooo vibrant...my dh isn't interesting in going to Dubai until the middle east settles down a little...who knows when that will be!!!

[Ashley]

I'm very glad you started blogging again.